Pie-making advice from my parents

[jwgh]

I visited my father's house last weekend and while there asked him for advice on making graham cracker crust, as I had made some the week before and had thought that it didn't taste quite how I remembered it tasting when I grew up.

He said that he had recently learned a new technique which he now swore by: basically you make regular pie crust and then smush crushed graham crackers into it. (My stepmother pointed out that one of the reasons people make graham cracker crust is because it's easier to make than conventional crust.)

Over the course of this, he revealed that you can actually buy pre-crushed graham crackers specifically for making pie crust. This was quite a surprise!

So last Monday my mother came down to have dinner with me and I mentioned the existence of pre-crushed graham crackers. She made a face and said, "Never buy pre-crushed graham crackers." I asked why not, and she said, "Well, I think it's like my aunt told me when I was growing up: never buy chicken parts. You should always buy a whole chicken, because they use the chickens that have something wrong with them for that and throw away the bad parts. Although that's probably not true any more since demand is so high now. So I think it's the same thing for graham crackers."

So, anyway, I'm going to make a couple of simple graham cracker crusts (graham crackers + sugar + butter) using pre-crushed graham crackers.

I have a reputation in my family for never taking advice. I wonder why that is?

Comments

[kerri9494.livejournal.com]

I really have to wonder what could be wrong with a second-rate graham cracker.
Also, I always use the precrushed graham crackers.
Also also, I love graham cracker crusts.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

When I was making a cheesecake recently, with a graham cracker crust, I found it was quite difficult to find plain graham crackers, all of them being either cinnamon or honey-something.

But it was a pumpkin cheesecake, and the crust was going to have some spices added as well as sugar, so I just adjusted them accordingly and it went well. But I share your grandmother's reaction to the pre-crushed graham crackers, though not for the same reason-- why miss out on the enjoyable process of bagging and crushing graham crackers? Plus the crackers are probably cheaper, though I haven't checked.

I've been wondering if Mazto Meal is, as I suspect, crushed mazto crackers? Because they make for great soup dumplings. *shrug*

[samantha2074.livejournal.com]

I use pre-crushed crumbs to make the bottom layer of magic cookie bars and they've always tasted perfectly delicious to me.

It's not

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

what's wrong with the cracker, it's what disgusting parts of the cracker they use. You're eating graham-cracker tenderloins!